The proposed redevelopment area is designated by the dotted yellow line. The pink coloration designates âdowntown businessâ zoning and the green is âtransitional residential.â The Union Hotel is at lower left, and the building on the far right is 110 Main St.Source: Clarke Caton Hintz

FLEMINGTON — Not only does the Union Hotel property need to be redeveloped, but so does the rest of the block south to Chorister Place, plus the bank building just beyond. That is the finding of the borough’s planning consultants, Clarke Caton Hintz.

In New Jersey, when a municipality declares a site to be “an area in need of redevelopment,” it takes control of the redevelopment. Though that's already happened for the hotel itself, the Planning Board must hold a public hearing on expanding the designated area.

That is planned for Monday, Dec. 16, at 7 p.m. in Borough Hall, and the affected owners will be invited. After that, the Planning Board can recommend that all, part or none of the area be taken in hand by Borough Council.

Taking charge of the bigger area had been suggested years ago by the borough’s planner Carl Hintz, but council had limited the designation to the Union Hotel property in order to get the revival of that landmark started.

At the July 29 council meeting, Mayor Erica Edwards noted that 78 Main St., currently called “The Potting Shed,” is being annexed to the hotel; 80 Main’s owner now wants to be part of the redevelopment; and council had already been talking about adding 90-100 Main to the area. That’s the borough-owned former Hunterdon County National Bank building with attached police headquarters. Later, the building just across Chorister Place at 110 Main St., currently housing Unity National Bank, and the county’s old choir school building, were added to the area for study.

Frank Banisch, who wants to redevelop 80 Main, said later that a reason for extending the redevelopment area is “more for efficiency than unity,” citing for example a plan put forward by Hintz for maximizing and sharing the parking areas that are behind that row of buildings. And the new report says, “There is insufficient parking to meet the full occupancy of most of the buildings in the study area.”

The report says the buildings are generally “substandard, unsafe, unsanitary, dilapidated or obsolescent… or are so lacking in light, air or space as to be conducive to unwholesome living or working conditions.” These qualities make the properties eligible to be “an area in need of redevelopment.”

Many of the buildings are at least partially empty. The report says, “The continued vacancies at the Lynn property (78 Main), Tweed property (80 Main) and 90 Main impact the entire community because they are detrimental to the economic health of the borough since they are situated on Main Street in the center of the downtown business district.”

Meanwhile, Flemington Union Hotel LLC, the borough-designated redeveloper of the Union Hotel, is waiting for the Potting Shed to be added to the hotel’s redevelopment area before the site plan is finalized.